


H(a)unted

by belovedmuerto



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dreams, M/M, Nightmares, empath!John, experiments in empathy, sebastian moran - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-19
Updated: 2013-05-19
Packaged: 2017-12-12 06:46:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/808526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belovedmuerto/pseuds/belovedmuerto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is attacked in the night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	H(a)unted

**Author's Note:**

> So, of the last three or four stories I've posted, this one was written first. And edited and finished first. Figures, right? All the other ones fought me, this one did no such thing. Anyway, once I have the timeline for the next arc a bit more solidified, I'll figure out where these all fit in, along with anything else I post between now and then (like my prompt fic from teh AO3Auction and the other one that PrettyArbitrary prompted me with that are both in this 'verse), and try to make a post or a timeline or... something.
> 
> Anyway, i feel like everyone and their brother has helped out and already read this one, so thanks go to the usual suspects. You're all awesome for letting me whine and/or gush at you about John.
> 
> (Also, for those worrying/hoping, I'm working on B&B this weekend, so I should be able to get at least one or two chapters posted this week!)

His dreams are dark and confused. He is running from something, being hunted, but he doesn’t know what or why. He is angry and afraid, but he doesn’t know why or of what. The dreams are dark, he cannot see anything. Yet he keeps running, blind and panicked.

Sherlock is slow to extricate himself from the dream pulling at him. Even once he’s realized he’s dreaming he has a hard time letting go of it, has a hard time waking himself up. Eventually he does, with a strangled, half-snorted, “John?”

There’s no answer. Sherlock turns his head to the right, but John’s head isn’t next to his on their pillows. 

“John?” 

The room is dark, no light seeping in around the curtains or from the bathroom or hallway, so it’s hard to make out the shape of John, sat on the edge of the bed. Sherlock stretches, watching him, the rigid line of John’s bare back becoming clearer as his eyes adjust better to seeing in the darkness, to being awake.

John doesn’t move or acknowledge him.

“John?” He can hear the concern creeping into his still sleep-hoarse voice. Sherlock reaches out mentally to his John, so close and yet so far away right now. So deep in his own head. Sherlock doesn’t feel much of anything from him, and that is cause for worry. He sits up and scoots across the bed to lay his hand on John’s shoulder.

John’s skin is cool to the touch, like he’s been sat on the side of the bed in just his pants, in the chill air--christ, it’s gone three in the morning--of their room for hours. He’s so cold, like death. It terrifies Sherlock.

“John, please,” he murmurs, close to John’s ear, chin over his shoulder, stroking his hand down John’s back.

“Sherlock,” John says, barely above a breath. He’s staring straight ahead, his hands clasped together between his knees.

Sherlock scoots closer, completely eliminating the distance between them, wrapping himself around John’s compact, muscular form, trying to will heat back into his chilled body. John shivers once, delicately. His body doesn’t relax, not like he normally does when Sherlock plays at being limpet, he doesn’t ease into the contact or acknowledge it beyond that single shiver. 

“I don’t feel like myself,” John adds, voice still all but non-existent. 

“What’s wrong?” Sherlock asks, pitching his voice low as well, still close to John’s ear. But he doesn’t need to ask; this close, with this much skin to skin contact, he can feel it. Oily slick and dark, creeping at the edges of John’s mind, trying to smother him, trying to get in and overpower him. This is why he didn’t feel anything from John at first. This is what’s dampening his emotions. This is why John is sat at the edge of their bed in the cold and dark, in the middle of the night, fighting this presence in his mind, fighting to stay above it, to keep from being drowned in it. This is why Sherlock is terrified for John, why his dreams were so awful, why they’re both terrified. He thinks John must be too, deep under the creeping awfulness, though he’s too concentrated on fighting it to feel it right now.

Sherlock’s arms tighten around John, and he starts adding his own defenses to John’s, without thought, without asking, working hard to banish that slimy feel from inside John’s head. It’s supposed to be safe inside John’s head, it’s his haven, it keeps him sane. He will not let it get to John, not like before.

“Fight it, John,” he says, orders. “Keep fighting it.”

John nods once, a single jerk of his head.

They sit quiet in the dark for a long time, John rigid with tension, with suppressed fear, and Sherlock wrapped around him, stalwart, fierce. Eventually, the oil-slick darkness starts to recede, and John relaxes, just a tiny bit. 

“Lie down with me,” Sherlock says, when he senses it starting to go.

John nods again, and they return to a prone position in the bed, Sherlock holding John close, close against his side within the circle of his arms. John takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

“It was--” he starts to say, after a very long time. He can tell, however, that Sherlock isn’t asleep, that he will remain vigilant through the night. John finds he can’t quite bring his voice above a whisper.

“I know,” Sherlock replies, cutting him off. “Try to sleep, John. I’ll keep watch.”

John shakes his head against Sherlock’s chest. “I won’t be sleeping anymore tonight.” He feels Sherlock’s acknowledging nod against the top of his head.

“I’ll call Mycroft in the morning,” Sherlock says, after a while. John nods again.

They’re quiet for a long time. 

“I’m afraid, Sherlock,” John says, his voice no more than a breath.

“I know,” Sherlock replies, lips pressed to the top of John’s head. “I am too.”


End file.
